“Seldom has misfortune so crushed a noble spirit, and never, perhaps, has the ‘bitter bread of banishment’ seemed more bitter to any one than to him.  We must remember that the love of country was a passion with the ancients to a degree which it is now difficult to realise, and exile from it even for a time was felt to be an intolerable evil.  The nearest approach to such a feeling was perhaps that of some favourite under an European monarchy, when, frowned upon by his sovereign, he was hurled from place and power, and banished from the court.  The change to Cicero was indeed tremendous.  Not only was he an exile from Rome, the scene of all his hopes, his glories, his triumphs, but he was under the ban of an outlaw.  If found within a certain distance from the capital, he must die, and it was death to any one to give him food or shelter.  His property was destroyed, his family was penniless, and the people whom he had so faithfully served were the authors of his ruin.  All this may be urged in his behalf, but still it would have been only consistent with Roman fortitude to have shown that he possessed something of the spirit of the fallen archangel".[1]

[Footnote 1:  Forsyth’s Life of Cicero, p. 190.]

His exile lasted nearly a year and a half.  Long before that time there had come a reaction in his favour.  The new consuls were well disposed towards him; Clodius’s insolence had already disgusted Pompey; Caesar was absent with his legions in Gaul; his own friends, who had all along been active in his favour (though in his querulous mood he accused them of apathy) took advantage of the change, his generous rival Hortensius being amongst the most active; and all the frantic violence of Clodius and his party served only to delay for a while the return which they could not prevent.  A motion for his recall was carried at last by an immense majority.

Cicero had one remarkable ally on that occasion.  On one of the days when the Senate was known to be discussing his recall, the ‘Andromache’ of Ennius was being played in the theatre.  The popular actor Esop, whose name has come down to us in conjunction with that of Roscius, was playing the principal character.  The great orator had been his pupil, and was evidently regarded by him as a personal friend.  With all the force of his consummate art, he threw into Andromache’s lament for her absent father his own feelings for Cicero.  The words in the part were strikingly appropriate, and he did not hesitate to insert a phrase or two of his own when he came to speak of the man

  “Who with a constant mind upheld the state,
  Stood on the people’s side in perilous times,
  Ne’er reeked of his own life, nor spared himself”.

So significant and empathetic were his tone and gesture as he addressed himself pointedly to his Roman audience, that they recalled him, and, amid a storm of plaudits, made him repeat the passage.  He added to it the words—­which were not set down for him—­